• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Bernard Corden / Blinded by the Light

Blinded by the Light

March 31, 2021 by Bernard Corden Leave a Comment

Blinded by the Light

Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena

Wilhelm Reich

Dear Member$,

Welcome to the latest edition of the AHH$ fake newsletter. Our indoctrinating gala trivia ball is looming and all being well, we shall rise to the challenge and set the Covid Safe venue at North Taroom Pétanque Club ablaze. The response to our call for papers was unprecedented although several of the handful of submissions were typically littered with effete discourse and insipid glossary from the SPoR gunny sack.

Most of the lame offerings included woke vernacular such as BAME, gaslighting, mansplaining, socially constructed, black or sapphic lives matter, white male privilege, structural racism, hard-wired and gender pay-gap. It does not matter what is said, just who is saying it.

Any skerrick of critical thinking from recidivist zero harm infidels with remote or even tenuous links to the seditious Dr. Rob Long and the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk faction failed to meet our strict objective criteria and the submissions were categorically rejected.

The AHH$ and its episcopal sect repudiates any non-sequitur shibboleths or debate with a diaphanous worldview that dissolves into emptiness like a house built with butterscotch flavoured Angel Delight instead of bricks and mortar. Our research is underpinned by the philosophy of science and the Deming architecture of oppression, which relies heavily on rational logic, cause-effect ideology and is complemented by the black box psychology of behaviourism. It is supported by quantitative evidence based facts and metrics, especially during the Covid-1984 pandemic and following the Dreamworld theme park tragedy….What gets measured gets managed.

Meanwhile, our organising committee has been working relentlessly and secured a commitment from the recently appointed federal attorney general to deliver the opening address at our national conference. Noise restrictions will require attenuating the ear-splitting cacophony and it will be delivered without moving her head, which is quite challenging given previous performances were reminiscent of a Scottie Road fishwife snorting shabu on a Bevington Bush thoroughfare. Attendees will be provided with suitable devices in accordance with the hierarchy of controls and requirements of AS/NZS 1270:2002 Acoustics – Hearing protectors.

The exclusive agreement required extensive lobbying from our unctuous media liaison officer and delusional blogger, Hannibal Lecter (FAHH$ MEAA). The telemarketing guru has no formal qualifications in occupational health and safety or fluency in PNG Tokpisin but displays many chthonic or netherworld traits. These include an innate aptitude of many redundant correspondents for hacking smartphones, emails and websites and demonising any visionaries who speak the truth to power or challenge the orthodoxy and its prevailing stem worldview. Our legal team at Carter-Ruck in the UK, which specialises in reputation management is currently investigating several complaints from prominent whistleblowers.

In a recent federal cabinet reshuffle the Subiaco besom has become First Law Officer of the Crown in the Commonwealth of Australia. The former squeeze of the unimpeachable redneck, Ross Lightfoot was the same harridan cabinet minister responsible for implementing the Federal Government JobActive program and its controversial Work for the Dole scheme, which is merely lawless slavery and incongruous with Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The program involved the death of a young teenager at the Toowoomba showgrounds back in 2016 and over five years later the federal government has still not produced a report into the tragedy. It is the same government and minister involved in the exploitation of vulnerable migrants via the Seasonal Worker Program and the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme, which reflects our vision and values. The Fair Work Ombudsman recently confirmed there had been over 80 fatalities throughout the agricultural and horticultural sectors in the decade leading up to 2016, which included numerous quad bike incidents on rural properties.

Other victims suffered appalling injuries following the operation of dilapidated farming equipment or machinery and the horrific events often involved tractors with power take off shafts that frequently left vulnerable migrants disabled and permanently disfigured. This is aggravated by rampant intimidation with frequent accounts of sexual harassment and relentless abuse, which is underpinned by an autocratic and militaristic culture of fear.

The Seasonal Worker Programme and its supplementary Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme are demand driven structures, which are fraught with significant risk and merely boiler plate replicas of the cataclysmic home insulation program. The arrangements are underpinned by free market fundamentalism and have been usurped by corporate power with superficial protocols covering employer accreditation, supplier registration and frivolous supply chain audits. Much like Work for the Dole under the JobActive program it may also circumvent statutory requirements covering workers compensation insurance.

This is exacerbated by a sector that traditionally relies on casual labour with cash in hand payments, which is further antagonised by a chaotic visa system. It has generated escalating inequality with a foreboding subculture of disenchanted precariats that is way beyond the gaze of the lumpenproletariat or the mindless consumers in our supermarket aisles shopping on credit for what they want but don’t actually need

The Brady Bunch challenge in previous newsletters proved extraordinarily difficult and despite an exceptional response no entries were able to allocate correct names to individual images in the montage. Most of the efforts correctly identified the endangered Acland Parrot, Alan Belford Jones (AO), Diane Propaganda and Captain Bligh, who is unrelated to the Australian Banking Association chief executive officer. The answers will be revealed following the conference dinner. at the Eugene Terre Blanche memorial hall, which is merely a short stroll from the conference venue. The local 7-Eleven store is also nearby, which is open late, very expensive and a perfect place to visit and relax with your partner following dinner.

The main course includes an extensive range of Domino’s pizzas, which will be delivered using a subjugated temporary migrant engaged as an independent contractor through Uber Eats or Deliveroo on a pilfered second hand mountain bike with faulty brakes and no night lights or reflectors. Desserts will include Murray Goulburn Devondale UHT cream with an assortment of fresh fruit and berries ethically sourced from several farms throughout Queensland’s Wide Bay region and Tasmania’s Bass Coast under the Seasonal Worker Program and the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme.

The organising committee and its tireless telemarketers have secured sponsorship for the event from several influential and divinatory donors, which include Fortnum & Mason, Twinings and Lipton. This reflects and aligns with the presentation from a keynote speaker who is described as a futurist with extensive proficiency in the use of big data and predictive analytics. It could have a devastating impact across the insurance sector and with organisations such as DWF Australia, which has the family trust as a stakeholder and received almost $5.4 million in Queensland state government fees involving workers’ compensation cases during the last financial year.

Another presentation discusses the impact of the work health and safety in the delivery and ride sharing gig economy, which is hardly earth shattering. It is merely indentured servitude or peonage and attempts to circumvent or obscure statutory duty of care requirements. Ken Loach’s latest movie entitled Sorry We Missed You offers a much better alternative. It exposes the reality and inequality of serfdom or vassalage and challenges the orthodoxy without any academic cowardice.

A recent UK Supreme Court decision ruled that Uber drivers must be treated as workers rather than self-employed. It could mean thousands of Uber drivers are entitled to a minimum wage and holiday pay entitlements. The decision could leave Uber with a hefty compensation bill and have significant consequences throughout the McJob gig economy.

Despite its fundamentally flawed conceptual structure (Figure 1), much of the contemporary research from Australia’s peak safety body is underpinned by its OHS Body of Knowledge, which somewhat speciously claims organisations are influenced by the socio-political context:

Figure 1: OHS Body of Knowledge Conceptual Structure

image

Following the infamous Lewis Powell corporate call to arms in the early 1970s, major corporations across the United States embarked on an extensive lobbying campaign. Many organisations transferred their media liaison teams from Manhattan to Massachusetts Ave NW in Washington DC and the thoroughfare was affectionately termed Think Tank Row. The region between Thomas Circle and Dupont Circle houses many influential corporate brigands such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Bryce Harlow Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. Other nearby outlaws include McKinsey and Company, whose fingerprints can be found at the scene at the scene of some of the most spectacular corporate and financial debacles of recent decades. The Australian federal minister for disease and the incumbent chairperson of Safe Work Australia have both held senior roles within this global buccaneer, which is affectionately referred to as The Firm.

Many corporate gangsters have embraced George Stigler’s concept of regulatory capture from the Chicago school of economics. Despite the doctrine covering separation of powers a resilient merger of state and corporate interests has emerged across every structural level of government in most western democracies and an elective dictatorship prevails.

Almost five decades later, corporations are no longer required to lobby federal, state or local governments because they are the government. Indeed, there is no longer any left or right in politics, it is now top versus bottom and the major corporations control the sociopolitical context, which reflects and aligns with Shareholder Theory or the Friedman Doctrine. This was quite evident following investigations into recent disasters such as Grenfell Tower, BP Deepwater Horizon, Upper Big Branch, Dreamworld and the Boeing 737 Max tragedies involving Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines.

The subsequent inquiry is typically headed by a politically appointed chairperson and includes extremely narrow terms of reference, which avoids lifting any festering scabs and prevents encroachment into politically sensitive minefields. The investigation eventually establishes where all the bodies are buried and evaluates the magnitude of the risk. The sanitised report and plethora of recommendations protects state interests and secures the assets of major corporations, especially party donors. Losses are subsequently socialised until the next disaster arises and the process is repeated ad infinitum to ensure nothing changes.

Meanwhile, forthcoming national health and safety conference from our peak safety body is entitled A New Perspective: Rising to the Challenge:

image

If previous safety conferences act as guide, it is most likely none of the presentations will challenge the orthodoxy. Academic cowardice will prevail amidst a relentless stream of insipid and turgid formulaic sludge and……Third rate material from second class minds is hardly a necessity of life.

Meanwhile a totalitarian society has totalitarian science and let’s close with some adapted lyrics from Blinded by the Light by The Boss:

With a boulder on my shoulder feelin’ kinda older I tripped the merry go round

And amidst a very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground

Go kart Mozart was checking out the TRIFR chart to see if it was safe outside

And a curly-wurly Ardent Leisure director asked me if I needed a ride

We were blinded by the light

Cut loose like a deuce another runner in the night

Watch this Space

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More Info

Bernard Corden

Latest posts by Bernard Corden (see all)

  • After the goldrush - May 8, 2021
  • The Internationale - April 28, 2021
  • SHE’s lost control again - April 27, 2021
  • Can’t buy me love - April 16, 2021
  • Blinded by the Light - March 31, 2021

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Bernard Corden Tagged With: AIHS

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,500 other subscribers

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Not Just Another ‘Hazard’

Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?

How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety

ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do

The KISS of Death in Safety

Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health

The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’

The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health

Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)

No Good Reason to Follow Reason

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Not Simply One other ‘Hazard’ - Personal Safety News on Not Just Another ‘Hazard’
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Rob long on How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Rob Long on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Matt Thorne on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • simon p cassin on Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • Hurak Learning on How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Rob Long on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Paul Gentles on An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Brent Charlton on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Rob Long on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Brian on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Jaise on The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Rob Long on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Linda McKendry on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Rob long on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • Proving Safety
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • NATIONAL SAFETY DAY/WEEK IN INDIA 2023
  • Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • Safety Acronyms
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat

Recent Posts

  • Not Just Another ‘Hazard’
  • Work-Life and Risk, Feminine Perspectives
  • Psychosocial Safety, Is it possible to make it culturally normal?
  • How to Be Oriented Towards Psychosocial and Mental Health in Safety
  • Free Download – Real Risk – New Book by Dr Robert Long
  • Proving Safety
  • ISO 45003 and What it Cannot Do
  • Harming People in the Name of Good
  • An Advanced Understanding of Culture – A Video
  • Risk and Safety Maturity
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • Behavioural Safety is NOT a Foundation for Tackling Psychosocial and Mental Health
  • The Worst Approach to Psychosocial Problems is an Attitude of ‘Fixing’
  • SPoR Comes to Vienna June 2023
  • The Language of ‘Hazards’ and Psychosocial, Mental Health
  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • The Visionary Imagination – Louisa Lawson
  • Heaven ‘n Hell and the Safety Religion
  • Confirmity in Conformity
  • Numerology and Psychic Numbing
  • Thinking of Mortality
  • Safety is the Wrong Anchor
  • Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk
  • What is SPoR?
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety
  • When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
  • Gloves and Glasses Compliance
  • A Case of Desensitisation – What Would You Do?
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • The Mythic Symbology of Safety
  • Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
  • 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that…
  • Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Culture as a Wicked Problem, for Safety
  • Safety Leadership Training
  • Cultural Orientation in Risk
  • The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk
  • Objectivity, Audits and Attribution When Calculating Risk
  • Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Zero, The Seeking of Infinity
  • Safety Leadership Essentials
  • What Can Indiana Jones Tell Us About Culture
  • Safety as a Worldview
  • The Loathing of Limits

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

The Safety Control Delusion

Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk (CLLR)–Study Calendar

SPoR Ontology and Methods – A Video

Why Myths in Safety Work

Certificate, Diploma and Masters Studies in SPoR

The Reason Safety Has Gone So Crazy

Post Graduate Safety Potato Heads

The Safety Worldview and the Worldview of Safety, Testing Due Diligence

The Power in Silence

A Great Comparison of Risk and Safety Schools of Thought

A Masters Degree in ‘Tick and Flick’

Desensitisation–the by-product of ill-conceived safety initiatives

Prepositions for Risk and Safety Leadership

Free Online Module: Introduction to The Social Psychology of Risk

Selling Out Safety

No Moral Compass in Zero

The Challenges for Organisations in Dealing with Mental Health

The Advisor as Skilled Helper

What If I Valued People And Not Safety?

The Language of Priorities

The Art of the Open Question

Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

Freedom in Necessity

Gestures in Risk Management – A Podcast

Abby Normal Safety

How do we mourn?

How to Leave the Safety Industry

Visual Learning and Envisioning Risk

Safety and Non-Neuroscience

The Illusion Of Opposites

Could Understanding Grey Be The Silver Bullet

Symbols Matter

SEEK Investigations Workshop

Third Group Commences the Graduate Program in The Psychology of Risk

Rituals in Risk Management – Podcast

Incident Investigations and the Einstellung Effect

Safety as a Knowledge Culture

Seven Essential Safety Reminders

By What Method Do You Tackle Risk?

The Human Safety Newsletter is Out

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,500 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY